when i think back on the many years i spent acting my mind gravitates to the space just off-stage. to the countless moments just before an entrance. the great gaping mouth of that threshold between reality and make-believe. the cool, dark nooks ringing-round the edge of light. the sacred space in which fear and potential mingled, lived-side-by-side, drew breaths one from the other.
and then onto the stage. into the space. into the light.
i was never aware of being watched. never aware of even thinking up there. it was...it just was. perhaps the purest, most authentic form of myself. but cloaked under the pretense of...pretend.
(and under the pretense of pretend everything is a bit more real).
i don't miss acting. i don't think i do. if i'm really honest, i don't. and then i feel tremendously guilty for the not. the not missing. the not wanting. the non-pursuit.
but maybe i do. maybe the not is really the non-remembrance. perhaps if i found myself in those wings once more i might suddenly become aware that i have lived the past three years without ever once breathing.
i don't think so. because there is this, this writing. and there are lungs to these words.
but the thing about writing--at least in this domain--is there is an immediacy and a lack of anonymity that i am suddenly finding all-together-terrifying.
i find myself. center stage. staring out. breaking down that fourth-wall. aware of all those eyes.
and i am, for the first time, more aware of what cannot be written than what can.
of how i cannot write of the boy i met on the bus from boston. or the one who took me to a wine bar in the west village. i cannot write about the man who's face i've conjured up so many times i can't remember what he looks like.
point of fact, i cannot write about men at all. except the imagined. always the imagined. only the imagined.
i cannot write about loneliness or the holes in faith that pepper most mornings.
i can't write about the new scented soap that lives in my bathroom and makes me utterly sick to my stomach. how the scent creeps out into the hallway, into the living. room. how i hate that soap. hate what it stands for.
i cannot write about any of these things because these things--these thoughts--are tethered to people. and these people deserve their anonymity, if anyone.
i cannot write about the monotony of the days now abutting one.into.theother. nor how i am suddenly aware that a thinner frame doesn't make any of this easier. i mean i knew that, but now i know that. there's always someone skinnier, blonder, more vibrant.
how it's apathy i find most dangerous. most unnerving. how i take in deep breaths and am met with no air.
i cannot write about how i just want someone to go grocery shopping with. how i went to make dinner for them. do their laundry. it all sounds so terribly un-feminist. so not-of-the-moment.
and if these things are to be written, to be read--if they are to be read would the words lose their air?
an open letter to any man (the world over) who may ever reject a woman:
in finding love
dear man-lucky-enough-to-have-a-woman-ask-you-on-a-date:
keep it simple. and pay homage to the deeply courageous thing she did by putting herself out there.
(1) express how deeply flattered you are and (2) simply say, no thank you.
that is all. leave it there. let it alone. even if she responds. say nothing, or if you must (and only if you must) reemphasize the above two points.
anything else that you might say--in hopes of making her feel better (or even yourself)--will inevitably be the thing she finds patronizing and upsetting. and of course, it will inevitably be the thing she replays again and again.
and then, and i can't emphasize this enough. in the days that follow: stop being so damn nice. stop being the guy she liked in the first place. it makes it that much harder.
she will like you all the more and all the less for the kindness you offer up. and she will feel crummy for not being able to meet your friendly gaze. so please don't ask or expect her to.
just a friendly piece of advice,
meg
date a girl who reads.
in quotes
it's been one of those weeks. one of those weeks where i've been feeling a little...less than. a little unworthy or unfilled or who knows...just not enough i suppose.
wednesday afternoon i found myself with nothing to do. so i took myself to the corner cafe and put pen to paper (so to speak) and as the words flowed out i thought, i have worlds within me.
i have endless stores of worlds in the form of words. we all do. i may not have the perfect job or the dream man, but i am filled by words. and when all is said and done they satiate me in a way nothing else can.
so in trolling through blogs last night this hit a particularly poignant (and potent) note.
(for the life of me i now can't remember where i read it, but if it's yours, you know it, email me and i'll give you some credit!)
Date a Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by God, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
ps: happy fourth!!!!
minehatten: the summer edition
in my manhattan
rob spent some time doing a show in germany last year and shared with me that they often refer to frankfurt as mainhatten because it's the only city in the country with skyscrapers (and because it's located on the main river). i think it's a tremendously clever play on words so this edition of my manhattan will be entitled in that same spirit.
wednesday night found the two of us swing dancing (where i was too busy doing the lindy hop to snap any photos) followed by a lovely walk in riverside park. the weather was heaven-sent: cool and crisp-- one could smell the lushness of the northeast. it was one of those nights that reminded me why it is often in the dead of summer, late in the evening when the city has thinned and settled, that i am most in love with new york and all its offerings.
one of those love letters (sort of).
dear husband-to-be,
at this point i make a mean cup of coffee, am relatively adept around the kitchen, and my boobs will only stay perky for so long.
hurry up.
xo,
yours